My home system has a SWM with 3 DVRs (1 of them a genie) an HR24-700, and an old school D12 for an analog TV in the guest room. Everything works perfectly at home. I want to use the D12 for a few tailgates and a camping trip or 2 during the year. I have an extra 18" round dish that I hook up to the D12, go through the entire set up, changing it to multi-switch and option 1 for the round dish. Everything goes great until after it finishes acquiring info from the satellite, I can see the headers for the channels, but no audio/video. The guide shows all the channels, I can see info on shows, but no audio/video. If I go back to redo the setup procedure, it has reverted back to SWM with option 17 for the dish (the way it is set up at home).

I called DirecTV and spent over 2 hours with them trying to set it up using every possible scenario of rebooting it and always get the same results. They insist there is a problem with the installation but I am POSITIVE that it is set up right. I even took the cable from the dish and plugged it into another old school receiver (not sure the model - it's silver) and it works perfectly - and I can change setups without any problem, etc. Signal strength ranges from a low of 85 to a high of 99 across the transponders. We even tried resetting it to factory defaults and it still resorts to the in home SWM, option 17 settings.

Sorry for the long explanation, but what gives? Is a D12 compatible with an 18" round (pretty sure it is)? How can I change the setup settings and make them stick?

Yes, the D12 is compatible wit the 18 round dish. make sure the remove the BSF (if it has one). also the key for the settings to "stick" is to repeat the satellite set up and make sure that the D12 is connected to a working dish and let the receiver go through the entire set up process.

Thanks for the quick response. I don't have any filters in line - satellite cable goes straight to satellite in. I've gone through the set up process at least 20 times, in every possible way (unplugging the system, removing the satellite in cable and putting it back at different times during the process, etc.). I know that the signal strength is very good. No matter what I do, it always leaves me without audio/video, just channel headers and info, and reverts back to the home setup. I think the receiver is defective - would that be a fair assessment? Thanks again.

I'm using the Yellow/Red/White cable. I guess you can say I'm getting video since I can see the headers for the channels when you change channels, I can hit info and see a description of the show, the guide is complete, just don't see or hear the show - black screen. Basically everything looks right, just can't see or hear any programming. They resent the signal, etc.

martin i831 - you have to select multiswitch FIRST, only then will the dish types become available. The OP actually seems to be doing this correctly. But as I posted, and then dcd posted in his follow-up post, if you don't get the dish aligned to the point where you have signal, if you go back to satellite setup the settings will "unstick" and you will have to start again.

The reason you're setup is reverting to "SWM" is that when setting up, you must FIRST set the dish type to "Multiswitch" THEN select the round model. Then you must align the dish and complete the setup without turning off the receiver and the settings will "take".

I have been selecting multiswitch first, then option 1 for 18" round. Also, the signal strength is very good - from a low of 85 to a high of 99 across all transponders. I can take the satellite cable and put it in another receiver (older one - I think it's a D10, silver in color) without any problems at all. I've done this before with other receivers in the past, even using different sized dishes, with no problems. I've gotten responses on another forum that these are difficult to switch back to multiswitch once they are on SWM, so it may be a lost cause. I'll probably end up taking it off the contract if so, because it would get more use 4 or 5 times a year outside the house than it currently does gathering dust in the guest room. Makes no sense to keep paying for it. But if anyone has any other tactics that they think might work, please feel free to chime in. Thanks for all your responses!

If you are seeing signal strengths on most of the transponders on 101 in the 90s then the D12 is set to the correct dish type, because if it was still set to SWM you would not see any signals at all. List all your D12 transponder strengths for us...